Courtesy The Apartment / Netflix
Hear me now and thank me later: The Hand of God is likely to go over your head. Those with a literacy in Fellini’s filmography will probably clock director Paolo Sorrentino’s (The Great Beauty) intent, but questions of unique depth against mere imitation of Italian filmmaking masters prevails. Even then the most dedicated cinephiles can find more than enough to miss in Sorrentino’s autobiographical tale, both to its credit and to its fault.
In 1980s Naples, teenage Fabietto (Filippo Scotti) is a loner who lives primarily through his imagination, his eccentric extended family—it’s an Italian film, so prep for a lot of family—and an outrageous group of García Márquez-like characters. Fabietto worships soccer star Maradona, who’s just performed his famous Hand of God play (Google it if you must) when major family tragedy shatters his world, pushing him toward filmmaking as a means of escaping the pain.
When the tragedy strikes at the midpoint, the The Hand of God veers down a path with which Sorrentino fans are well familiar—an examination of life’s moments and how that which is holy merges with the cursed. Like The Great Beauty, there’s a yearning, both to belong and to hide away. Sorrentino, long accused of being a Fellini-mimic by his critics, might be using Fabietto to justify his own future cinematic choices. Looking backward, The Hand of God’s similarities to 8 1/2 are endless, but, to its credit, it still goes for a minimal grandiosity rather than a dream-like atmosphere.
Two hours feel like four, and you might just wish Fabietto would get the hell on with whatever it is he’s destined to do. The narrative moves ahead by gentle and cruel moments, lacking in plot and designed without coming full circle. Hand of God doesn’t intend to hand-hold you, and those who’ve been forced to come of age before their time will see far more in Fabietto framed side-by-side with the ruined Vesuvius, a jagged and unformed structure. Life’s eruptions might lead its future fertilities, after all.
7
+ A cinematographer’s dream
- Could be tighter
The Hand of God
Directed by Sorrentino
With Scotti, Toni Servillo and Teresa Saponangelo
Center for Contemporary Arts, Netflix, R, 130 min.
